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The CSP Program places a strong emphasis on field-based and data-based studies of climate and landscape change. Graduate-level courses are offered in geomorphology, GIS applications, soils, climatology and paleoclimates. Graduate students are encouraged to pursue interdisciplinary studies that may involve close collaboration with several UNM faculty members, both within the department in related fields such as Biology, Anthropology and Geography, and with scientists at nearby national laboratories. The web pages for CSP faculty, linked below, describe ongoing projects in more detail.
New Mexico incorporates four major physiographic regions (Colorado Plateau, Southern Rocky Mountains, western Great Plains, Rio Grande Rift valley). They are characterized by climates ranging from arid deserts at lower elevations to alpine in high elevation regions. Such geologic and climatic diversity offers unparalleled opportunities for studies of landscapes affected by Neogene tectonic and climatic changes.CSP research facilities in Northrop Hall include the Sediment/Soil Characterization Lab, a GIS spatial analysis facility that includes several computers, a digital plotter, stereomicroscope, a binocular magnifying stereoscope, mapping GPS system, and total station surveying system. A Unix cluster for more intensive computational needs has recently been developed in the Department, and is being expanded to include high-volume data storage for computational model results. Other departmental analytical facilities such as the paleomagnetism, X-Ray diffraction, SEM and stable and radiogenic isotope laboratories (sp) are also accessible.
For more information about the research of CSP faculty, please see the web pages of the individual members linked below:
Upper Photo: Blue Gap Cliff Concretions in the Jurassic Morrison Formation. Photo depicts differential weathering of large concretions that are found on hillslopes of small basins in the semiarid, northeastern part of Arizona on the Colorado Plateau. Our studies focus on how landscapes of this region have responded to climate changes in the late Quaternary, and especially during the late Holocene. By determining cosmogenic age dating of these particular concretions, we hope to acquire millenial-scale rates of slope erosion, which can then be compared and contrasted with episodes of basin sedimentation.
Lower Image: Red curve shows annual global mean surface-air temperature for the period 1880-1999, obtained from U.S. National Climatic Data Center. The mean temperature for period of record has been removed. Thick green curve shows annual mean concentration of CO2 (ppmv) for the period 1959-1999, sampled at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii (Keeling and Whorf, 1999). The preindustrial CO2 concentration of about 275 ppmv is marked by lighter green line. From Evaluating Global Warming: A Post-1990s Perspective (Gutzler, 2000); article available online at http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/gsatoday/gsat0010.htm.
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